Redondo Beach officials approved a car wash Tuesday night on Torrance Boulevard over the objections of nearby neighbors who had hired an attorney and traffic consultant to make their case about excess noise and congestion. The site, which used to house the old Redondo Car Wash, has been blighted for years, which is why there´s so much community interest in it. The post-midnight vote was 4-1.
FILE PHOTO Photo by Steve McCrank / Staff Photographer

A car wash consultant won approval early Wednesday to open a business at the site of the old Redondo Car Wash despite protests from nearby neighbors who pleaded with the City Council to reject the proposal.

At a six-hour packed public hearing that started Tuesday night, Redondo Beach residents living near the now-vacant property at Torrance Boulevard and South Irena Avenue cited concerns about traffic and noise, and rejected assertions that switching the plan from an express car wash to a full-service model, as the developer proposed, would lessen its effects on the neighborhood.

“It’s not the label that matters. It’s the features that matter. The long tunnel ... the industrial blowers,” resident Steve Walters told the council.

Walters had appealed the Planning Commission’s April approval of the car wash with resident Mark Kleiman, and both stood up to make their presentation with a traffic engineer, local attorney and others, playing a video that included clips of testimony from the planning meeting. They said they represented 200 residents in opposition to the proposal.

The property at 617 Torrance Blvd. has long drawn community interest, considering the prior car wash had been shut down for more than a decade and left to decay in an unkempt lot along a busy commercial stretch.

On the opposing side Tuesday night was car wash consultant Chris McKenna and his own experts, including former Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, who argued the car wash was a suitable choice for the property and had been thoroughly vetted.

“Your staff ... evaluated the reports, required seven different revisions, and came to the conclusion that this project should be approved,” Trutanich said.

In the end — following hours of feedback from residents on both sides — it was. The council voted 4-1 to uphold the planning panel’s decision, with the neighborhood’s councilman, Bill Brand of District 2, dissenting.

Council members added in some new conditions, including car wash operating hours from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays, and restrictions against self-serve vacuum stations and credit card kiosks (which are typical features at self-serve washes). Also, the council specified that its approval was for a full-service wash only, and that the operator adhere to specific noise standards.

But the council members also loosened up one of the planning panel’s conditions limiting the business to serving 20 cars per hour, or a maximum of 200 per day. They instead instituted a 10,000-car monthly limit. (McKenna had sought to eliminate the planning panel’s condition on car limits).

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Although Brand a year ago had championed the demolition of the old building in preparation for McKenna’s Redondo Auto Spa — and posed for a picture on the site with other elected leaders — he expressed concerns that the businessman wouldn’t be able to offset noise impacts on the neighborhood, among other issues.

As the hearing wrapped up after midnight, Mayor Steve Aspel urged McKenna to “do it right.”

“People are upset,” he said. “The neighborhood is not going to welcome you with open arms. You know that.”